MOMA PS1/SHARJAH ART FOUNDATION

Published by MoMA PS1/Sharjah Art Foundation.Edited by Peter Eleey.

The installations and audio, sculptural, and kinetic works of Italian artist Lara Favaretto (born 1973) attempt to reconcile failure and aspiration. A sense of resignation to the forces of decay and obsolescence runs throughout her work--most visibly in her minimal cubes made of confetti, which decompose during the period of their display. Favaretto often recycles elements from previous installations as new works, reusing discarded industrial materials, and encasing found paintings in loose tapestries of wool yarn. The memorial form is directly evoked in a series that the artist calls “momentary monuments,” which loosely adopt but also subvert the vernacular of public sculpture. Favaretto often represents degeneration through machines: car wash brushes whirl repeatedly, wearing themselves down against metal plates; a platoon of compressed air cylinders randomly empties itself. This volume, published for Favaretto’s exhibition at MoMA PS1, is her first monograph.

Published by Archive Books.

Momentary Monument is Turin-based artist Lara Favaretto’s first artist’s book, an extension of her project of the same title, which was shown as part of the exhibition “Making Worlds / Fare Mondi” in the 53rd Venice Biennial, curated by Daniel Birnbaum. Including texts by Daniel Birnbaum and Chris Sharp, this publication expands the project shown at the Venice Biennial. It is divided into three parts: the first is a prologue, explaining how a swamp is created; the central part tells the stories of twenty disappeared individuals, characters such as Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader, who was lost in sea in 1975; and an epilogue describing the change in the surrounding landscape of the swamp, which doesn’t quite look the same.

Lara Favaretto (born Treviso, Italy, 1973) lives and works in Turin. Her works have been featured in the Sydney, Sharjah and Venice Biennials, the Torino Triennial, and exhibited in Castello di Rivoli, MOCA Los Angeles, and Palais de Tokyo, Paris.